17. Fire and Ice
The second race for the EX World Grand Prix was held in a Robotnik robot factory. Having followed signs saying 'Contestants only', Sonic paused in front of a raised cargo door and stared up at the huge, moustached Eggman logo emblazoned above. "How does he get away with it?" he asked out loud. "How can he make all those robots and plaster his face all over everything and expect people not to know that he's really Dr. Eggman?"
"Of course he expects people to know; he wants everyone to know," said a calm voice behind him, "although properly he wants them to know that Dr. Eggman is really Dr. Robotnik. That is his real name, you know."
"Shadow! Don't sneak up on me like that!" Sonic scowled briefly at the darker hedgehog, then dropped his grievance in hope of some answers. "So if they know, why doesn't anyone do anything?"
Shadow looked at Sonic, then raised his gaze to the yellow Eggman logo above them. "This is an automated factory," he pointed out, "and the few human supervisors who come here mostly come in through the personnel door - which is where the spectators are directed today. So there aren't really that many people who see this, and not everyone would immediately recognize it as Eggman's mark." He looked back at Sonic, with a perplexed expression. "For the rest, I am still not sure I understand it myself. According to Rouge, it is well known that Dr. Eggman is an alias of Dr. Ivo Robotnik, but there is no proof that will stand in court of law. Dr. Robotnik merely claims that the villainous 'Eggman' vandalizes his buildings and steals his robots. There is generally proof of said break-ins, and people have been arrested who avow that they were hired by Eggman to paint his symbols on Robotnik buildings and offices. This means that neither G.U.N. nor the police can arrest Dr. Robotnik." Shadow shook his head. "You'd do better to ask Rouge yourself; she can probably explain it better. But there are apparently reasons that make good sense to those with the power to make the arrest, that they do not. Perhaps you should attempt to catch Eggman mid-rampage one of these days, instead of merely chasing him away. Then you could serve as witness in a trial that goes on for ten years."
Sonic blinked, then caught the faint quirk at the corner of the other's mouth and realized that Shadow - Shadow! - was making a joke. The blue hedgehog flashed his own grin, then pursed his lips, pretending to consider the suggestion seriously. "Nah," he said, with a decisive shake of his quills, "I think my way's a lot more fun."
He shoved the door open, "After you." Sonic fell into step beside the other hedgehog as they proceeded down the hall. "Are you in this race, then?" The contestants had special seating away from the general public to cheer on their team members, which was where Sonic was headed. He knew a G.U.N. soldier had been racing Tails from Shadow's team, but not who was in the other races.
The black hedgehog raised a crimson eyebrow. "You haven't looked at the roster? I'm in the third race, with you and the alleged leader of the Babylon Rogues. Rouge is in this one, and that gray albatross."
Sonic stopped short. "Not you too, Shadow!" Shadow paused and looked back questioningly. "Tails was babbling on about some old legend about the Babylon Rogues and how they're supposed to have been the ultimate thieves on a flying island or something. Just because these guys stole a Chaos Emerald on these silly hoverboards, that's hardly a good reason to start grabbing at fairy tales!"
"Perhaps you're right," answered Shadow. He turned to continue up the hall, declining to argue. Perversely, that irritated Sonic more. The blue hedgehog scowled, and darted ahead, just by a few steps. He wasn't going to let Shadow lead him anywhere!
Deeper in the factory, Knuckles was pacing the track with his board and plotting his course. Several of the other racers were concerned by the molten ore that seethed below several areas of the designated path. Knuckles was accustomed to patrolling lava-filled areas of Angel Island along crumbling ledges, so secure floors over mere smelt didn't faze him any; besides, his nose told him that the stuff bubbling below the track was some sort of colored mud, not genuine 'molten' anything. Typical Eggman showoff stuff. But unless someone asked him, he didn't plan to broadcast the knowledge. All the better for me if the others are nervous in these surroundings. Wait - what's HE doing here? Holding his board tightly under one arm, Knuckles charged down the hall. He'd just seen a glimmer of pink and violet vanish around the corner, he was certain. That'd be all we need now; to have those Nightmare things popping up all over the racetrack! Huh? The corridor was empty except for several lines of golden rings and a scattered population of deactivated robots, some of the obstacles for this course. The echidna sniffed the air suspiciously. Where'd he go? Oil, metal, the sullenly glowing mud - but then, what did a dream smell like? The Guardian of the Master Emerald tried a different technique. Closing his eyes, he expanded his sense of touch away from his body (or at least, that's how he always pictured it) feeling for anything unusual. The walls and the robots he dismissed, the minor blips of energy that looked like golden rings, the stronger energy weaves that were the human and dokan participants - there was one slightly brighter, with a brush of Chaos energy, odd - and there! Beyond that one was another swirl of energy, not Chaos energy but similar to those blue spheres, only with a darker edge. Hah! Gotcha! Knuckles charged in that direction, opening his eyes just in time to dodge a robot in the middle of the corridor - and slam into someone tall.
He and the other person were knocked back off their feet. He blinked at the massive shape, his first thought being, That didn't feel like a human, then yelped "It's you!" as he leapt to his feet.
The grey albatross that he'd knocked off his board in Future City rumbled as he rose to his own feet. That explains the Chaos touch; he helped steal that Emerald, and he's clearly been handling it since. Dokan were denser than humans, and differently structured, and most were comparatively short. This feathered creature was a good twelve inches taller than Knuckles, but still had the solid feel of a dokan when collided with. "I'll make sure to pay you back for this!" The huge, yellow-gloved hands curled into fists.
"Hah! I let you get away last time, but definitely NOT today!" declared the echidna. It would be a pleasure to beat this guy in the race, especially if he could manage to tip him into the mud somewhere along the route. He started to move around the bird, still wanting to find NiGHTS before the race started.
The albatross had other ideas, though. "Why wait 'til later, you little punk?" He sidestepped to cut Knuckles off. "I'll pay you back tenfold, NOW!"
Not what Knuckles had planned, but he had no objections to a fight. Drawing his arm back, he cracked his elbow hard against something metal. Trying to keep an eye on his opponent while looking over his shoulder, he saw a 'live' robot crashing over backwards. "Eh, sorry," he muttered in embarrassment. Knocking over what might be a course judge wasn't going to look good. He skipped back from his foe to stand his accidental victim back on its feet, while the albatross roared with laughter. "What're you doin', you clumsy fool? Was that supposed to be some kind of punch?" He drew back his own fist dramatically and punched at Knuckles, hard.
"Nice try, buddy," sneered the echidna. The overly-telegraphed move gave him plenty of time to evade - but the unfortunate robot didn't dodge, and went crashing to the ground again. Stammering an apology, the huge grey bird grabbed the robot's arm and tried to heave it back up in turn, only to stagger backwards as the arm came off. Before either dokan could do more than blink, the abused mechanical shorted out in a dazzling display of sparks. Storm cleared his throat and glanced sidelong at the echidna, clearly wanting to stroll casually away and pretend that nothing had happened. Knuckles didn't want to back down, but the incipient fight had become a farce, and he hated being the butt of any sort of humor. Nor did he want to have to pay for the broken machine.
Then the loudspeakers crackled to life. "The race is about to start! All participants, please get to your positions now!"
Saved by the bell, thought Knuckles with relief. "The track then! We'll settle this there!"
Storm was clearly thinking the same thing. "Looking forward to it!" They grabbed their boards and hustled for the starting line.
Sure enough, the multicolored form of NiGHTS was there at the line. So was Rouge, who was eyeing the jester skeptically. Knuckles slid into the empty space beside the bat, since the alternative was to take the outside spot next to Storm. "Good luck, Rouge," he mumbled, not sure if he wanted her to hear or not.
The bat's sharp ears did hear, even over the noise of the loudspeaker and the crowd. She flashed him a surprisingly normal smile, without a hint of flirtatiousness. "Good luck to you, too, Knuckles." She glanced back at the Nightmaren. "Who is that girl?"
Knuckles frowned at NiGHTS, trying to reshape the jester into a female. He couldn't see it, but apparently Rouge and Amy did. Not that it mattered, he supposed. "That's NiGHTS. A friend of Tails', sort of," he added, trying to avoid using a pronoun.
"Oh? Doesn't look like his type," said the bat, but he could tell she wasn't really paying attention to the conversation. There was a chime overhead, and the beam of light started sweeping back from the starting line. Knuckles remembered what had happened to the early starters in the first race, and several competitors were clearly holding back, but he timed the motion in his head and charged when his mental countdown hit zero. Rouge was half a step behind him, and he wondered briefly if she had done her own count or was following him, and then he was leaping onto his board and hitting the start line and the light beam at the same instant. Nothing zapped him, but he felt the board kick forward even more powerfully than Tails' last upgrade could manage. Rouge yodeled behind him, apparently getting the same boost.
The track dropped steeply down to the first ramp, where a bridge across the fiery pit had been either retracted or removed. He stamped back on the board, kicking the nose high as he left the tip of the ramp, and twisted to spin the board as he flipped. He landed neatly and whipped his board around a curve, then into a U-turn as the track doubled back on itself. Unlike Sonic, Knuckles had been practicing a lot since they'd entered the race. He might not be as quick to pick up new things as the hedgehog, but his sense of balance and muscles were in excellent shape, and both were needed for this sport. And in truth, balancing on the swaying board was not too different from some of the rope and vine bridges on Angel Island. Besides, he'd already gotten Tails to confirm that the board could be made to travel much higher than the paltry twelve inches the racers were coasting at - after the Grand Prix the cub had promised to make it possible for him to ride his board up to Angel Island and back, a feat possible due to the Chaos Drive modification the fox had made. Something popped up in his peripheral vision, and he looked up sharply. He recognized one of Rouge's bat bombs just before it went off, blinding him.
He heard the bat's laugh as he veered wildly across the track. "Don't lose your focus, Knuckles!" A few other people yelled as he apparently cut them off, but all he could see were blue and purple spots. One waving fist made contact with another racer, but he had no idea who he'd hit. And then his board hit a wall and he barely got an arm up in time to keep his face from doing the same.
Blinking furiously, he located the trailing racers and set off in pursuit. Several with flight-adapted boards cut to one side and sped through a series of large floating rings - well, two sped and one somehow collided with the loop. A line of the (much smaller) golden rings materialized ahead of Knuckles and he tacked towards them, scooping several with one hand while his board's Chaos drive absorbed the rest. The energy boost from the rings also cleared his vision the rest of the way.
He almost wished it hadn't, because he was heading straight for a curtain of the faux molten metal. It might not be real, but it was hot, and it had that same eerie glow; it (probably) wouldn't vaporize him, but it could still scald. Fortunately there was a gap appearing at the other side of the course. Even more fortunately, as soon as he ducked through the break in the ore-fall he spotted a group of deactivated robots in front of a tunnel. He knocked them easily out of the way and raced down the shortcut, popping out onto the main track just in front of the next two trailing racers. He caught a bar on some sort of machine that swung a line of such bars across the glowing pool to almost the finish line, and saw that he wasn't as badly behind as he thought. He caught up with the next competitor as they crossed the line to start lap two, and swung a spiked fist sharply at the leopard dokan's face. He wasn't trying to actually make contact, but the other flinched enough to send his board careering off the track. Knuckles took the jump again by himself. Now he began looking more closely for potential shortcuts, and trying to pass through along the ring-chains to boost his board's power. Several of the people ahead were clearly riding each other's turbulence, but he hadn't been able to practice that by himself, and he didn't want to try something new if he didn't have to. Instead he tossed a couple of inactive robots out of the way and cut off an entire loop of the track. Now he could see four people ahead: a very reckless, teenaged human; Rouge; that albatross; and NiGHTS. Storm tried to swat Rouge but she dodged him, blowing a kiss that appeared to strike him like a physical blow, spinning his board off course. She tried to unleash a bat bomb on NiGHTS, as she had on Knuckles, but the jester suddenly dove off his board and flew rapidly ahead on his own power, surging past her and the human while towing his board under one arm. This startled the teenager enough that he missed a jump and fell below the track, but Rouge merely laughed and increased her speed. Knuckles had nearly caught up with Storm at this point, and the albatross was gaining ground on the two in front, when he suddenly pulled something from his feathers, then doubled over and slapped both hands against the ground. Knuckles saw the resulting shock wave and leaped his board over it, but both Rouge and NiGHTS were knocked off their boards and the track. The echidna swerved close enough to the edge to check on them, and gaped - not at Rouge, who had spread her own wings to catch herself, but at NiGHTS, who had suddenly frozen all the 'ore' solid. Having done so, the jester set out across the ice to the next section of track. Knuckles briefly debated, and decided the size of the shortcut was worth the risk of the ice thawing, and sent his own board after the Nightmaren. Rouge had reached the same conclusion, and he took care to stay away from her. The three regained the track just ahead of the machine ride, and crossed the starting line almost as one to the roar of the crowd.
Down the ramp and up over the jump, twirling their boards almost in unison, then the other two peeled away through the flight rings and Knuckles briefly had the track to himself. The announcer's balloon slipped overhead, and he caught part of the chatter - speculation on who the mystery competitor was and how NiGHTS had gotten into the race with no entry - but ignored it. He could feel someone coming up behind him, and swerved sharply left and up, pulling a neat flip over Storm as the albatross tried to clobber him, dropping back down to his right and slightly behind, just where Knuckles could land a solid punch to the feathered shoulder. Storm somehow managed to drop and cling to his board as it rolled, but lost ground while getting to his feet. Rouge dropped back into view as the now-frozen curtains of ore came into sight, but as she started to duck through the gap they suddenly thawed. The weight of the falling mud forced the board's nose down to the ground, and Knuckles heard the bat yelp as she was bucked forward through the mess herself. Fortunately, she sounded more outraged then hurt. The echidna pushed his board up to maximum speed, dove through a new gap in the orefall, and plunged into the shortcut tunnel with the albatross bellowing behind him. NiGHTS was nowhere to be seen at either end of the tunnel, and whether Tails' work was truly better than Wave's, or Storm's weight was slowing him down, Knuckles kept gradually increasing his lead. He pushed his board hard to the machine ride, scooping rings as he went, both to recharge it and to prevent Storm from getting them. He could hear Storm growling threats behind him as the machine swung them one last time toward the finish line, but the grey albatross never had a chance to catch up before Knuckles raced his board across the goal.